Personal care products, particularly cleansing and conditioning products, have traditionally been marketed in a variety of forms such as bar soaps, creams, lotions, and gels. Typically, these products must satisfy a number of criteria to be acceptable to consumers. These criteria include cleansing effectiveness, skin feel, mildness to skin, hair, and ocular mucosae, and lather volume. Ideal personal cleansers should gently cleanse the skin or hair, cause little or no irritation, and should not leave the skin or hair overly dry after frequent use. Further, cleansing compositions, particularly shampoos, designed for use with children should exhibit mildness to the ocular mucosae, and no or minimal eye sting, should material from the cleansing composition be placed in the eye.
It is highly desirable to deliver cleansing and conditioning benefits from a disposable substrate. Disposable products are convenient because they obviate the need to carry or store cumbersome bottles, bars, jars, tubes, and other forms of clutter associated with cleansing products and other products capable of providing therapeutic or aesthetic benefits. Disposable products are also a more sanitary alternative to the use of a sponge, washcloth, or other cleansing implement intended for extensive reuse, because such implements can develop bacterial growth, unpleasant odors, and other undesirable characteristics related to repeated use.
However, while disposable personal care articles, such as disposable washcloths or disposable mitts, which can be easily used by young children, are desirable they have their own problems. Retention on the hand of a user of such disposable mitts, especially during vigorous scrubbing, is one such problem. If the mitt is prone to fall off during use the user is more concerned with retaining the cleansing mitt on their hand instead of actually using the mitt to wash themselves.
The need remains for disposable cleaning products which are easy to use and suitable for use by consumers of ages, children, sizes and/or stages of development, especially products which are suitable children of different ages. Furthermore, the need remains for a wash mitt which is retained on a user's hand such that the consumer can focus on the task at hand, namely washing and cleaning, without having to be concerned with retaining the wash mitt on their hand.